The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-18
BITTER eRsRK,s BAD MAN.
The ORIGINAL Citizen Who Made Life
Miserable for the People

From the San Ffttncisco Eca,niner.
Nay. had the power I'd pour
The sweet milk of Concord into he'll,
Uproar the universal peace.
Confound all unity on earth.
~ Admit that am from Bitter Creek,~
aid w i. Robbins at the Russ House yes
terday Il can't helpit was from there,
and now can't very well get away for keeps
Besides, why should l! l am doing very
well there and like the place.
''But get little weary. Everywhere
go when put down my name the fool clerk
says:
Tel. Creek, are your
.'These things make me weary! New to
the jdiotic clerks aud Others perhaps, who
make the remark. hut awfully old to me.
''You say you half supposed this Bitter
i.rcek, or at least the Bad Man part of it,
81 be hypotheticalf Not bit of it. Con-
rult your map. Youth find one Bitter
Creek in Wyoming, two in Arizona, one
and possibly two, in Utah, one in Montana
and one in California. Almost all are small
streams, or they would be called rivers, as
YOU may suppose.
"Wcll the genuine aud historic stream is
in southwestern Montana, and that's where
I hail from. The creek is ITO miles long,
and emptics into the Clark's Fork of the
Columbia.
''The bad man was a fellow named Jim
n Yount, an exceedingly rocky individual,
who came there Ill very early times from
Tennessee. Nobody knew the exact date,
for he was ahead of most everybody else
He was none of your 'mild-mannered' sort
of men as Slade was represented to be-
Originally in Tennessee, suppose he was Il
Knob-hiiler, and as he grew older he rapidly
grew worse.
Upon my word, he was the most vicious.
yi,licsive man l ever heard of. He fairly
aearned his title. We heard he was a muir
jtr,j in Tennessee of three boys, payluates
~ school whom he didn't like He sloped to
Missouri ard knitted an old gentleman, in
whose cuploy he was, because the old man
insisted on his getting up at O'Clock in the
morning.
''He blazed his way in this manner pretty
eifectually to the West One of his first
deeds, which the pioneers of Montana recol-
lect, was tho shooting off Of both ears of a
bul-whacker by Jim
Jim saw him driving along, and re-
marked to a friend that he thought he
could make a center-shot on the transfers
big ear The friend doubted it, and he let
her go. He struck the auditing apparatus
mum in the middle. Before the teamster
could clap his hand on the shot ear whack
went ball through the other one.
1.-THE bad man then asked the bull-whacker
if he didn't want him to present him with a
round holes to put them in.
d''His next deed was to burn a school
house-some twenty miles away. He
claimed the children made faces at him as
he was going along one day, and he'd be
hanged if he'd have such kids to grow up to
know any more than he did.
''In dispute with two Confederates about
some stolen horses in go, a year after this
school house, he killed both of them, took
all the stock and gobbled their money. He
didn't even bury the fellows, but left their
bodies lying only fifty yards or SO from the
corral.
"But his best hold was in the saloons.
He'd drink barrel of whisky every few
days-no soft drinks for him-whisky every
time He had bleared, blotched face, that
looked like a chrome, and his oaths and
language in general was something fright
full to hear.
Il don't recollect crime in those early
days that he didn't commit He held up
stages, stole bullion and robbed mails with
impunity Nobody molested him. Every
body feigned not to know who did it, and
everybody went around cringingly asking
Jim as they patted him on the back, to take
adrirk. Quite often he'd get mad at this
even, and tell them TO have a care how they
came slobboring around him or he'd shoot
tie tops Of their heads off.
Jim played many brilliant engagements
tana, Boulder City and other places. His
Bitter Creek ranch was only rendezvous
for him, a sort of a central or pivotal point
where he and fellow thieves rounded up
their stolen horses and cattle.
Jim ran along for several years in this
way, cutting, shooting and killing until he
boosted himself that two graveyards
wouldn't hold the people that he had laid
away.
in '67, however, Jim made one trip toe
often to Helena. He had made his record
over there. But the rich placers had drawn
host of bad men there and one night
when Jim drew his artillery in Tom Best's
gambling dive and began to lay on right and
left he got ball in his heart that forever
fixed him:
'Of the crowd, though, he killed -four
first and MANNED for life three or four more
He was buried out in the foothills neal
Helena, and for long time and until it rot
ted away plain pine board marked hi!
grave and bore the inscription:
*........................ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
THE BAD MAN FROM BITTER CREEK. !:
II think Jim was about 40 years old wher
he was rounded III. 1t was glad day fol
Bitter Creek and joyful one for Helena
which for a long time boosted that it had
tucked our bad man away under the
daisies i.. ...
Nov, you might think that our region is
full of such citizens as Jim, but it is not so.
We are now, at least, a quiet, peaceable
community, devoted to ranching and agri
culture. 1t would do you good to visit Bit
ter Creek"
SAMUEL FROSTS BRAIN.